Saturday, July 28, 2007

I've spent 4 days in his company now, with Mr. K--g picking me up in the morning from the hotel and dropping me off at the S---l offices, then doing the opposite at the end of the day. Which is all good. He's promt, reliable and the fare never changes.

Excellent.

But then yesterday, on the ride home, I was staring out the window at this wacky world in which I've found myself when, from the corner of my eye, I saw Mr. K--g's hand moving towards the centre console. I think it was the way it was moving that caught my attention. So I kept watching, pretending I wasn't. Slowly, he picked up a pen, hid it in his hand and then just as slowly moved is hand back to the steering wheel.

Hmm, said I.

Mr. K--g then swaped the pen to his other hand, doing it like he was trying to hide doing it. Then he droped his arm to his side and hid the pen under his outside leg.

All of which I found quite intriguing...

The ride went on. Only, every now and then, I could see him gripping the pen like he might a knife. Lifting his hand slowly, like he was getting ready. Every time I looked across, he hid the pen under his leg again.

Okay, not so cool now; by this stage, my paranoia had woken up and was bitching about being away from home, taken to a place where I had no idea how anything worked, what people were saying or what I was eating...

I wanted my wifey.

I've seen Hostel, I know what happens to foreigners; I'm going to end up in a huge warehoue in the slums somewhere with Stinking Stan paying to have his way with me...

See? It's just not fun being a horror writer. Why couldn't I write romantic stories?? Maybe then Mr. K--g and I would develop an illicit love affair, only for me to break his heart when I returned to Australia...

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Well, I'm in Miri, in a hotel room listening the the near-monsoonal rain...

More fieldwork, more travel, more time away from my family (and house!), which I'm not too fond about, but hey, at least I'm getting paid to see another country.

This place is wild; the taxi drivers become your best friend--especially when they find out you will be needing a taxi to and from work every day for 10 days!--but I'm pretty sure they were all formula one drivers in their previous lives. Hell, we've topped 140km/h so many times that it's no longer exhilerating. And those road markings? Those lines indicating the lanes? Nah, that's just grafitti; you don't have to pay attention to those... And how much space do you really need when you're overtaking? So long as you don't hit another car, a few centimeters will do it, right? A miss is a miss; it's like winning by 20 points or winning by 1. Either way, you still win.

And it's muggy, so humid that I'm rapidly running out of undies.

Was sitting in the hotel bar just after dinner (now there was a feed!! Aint gonna need to eat for a good 3 or 4 days now), reading one of the local papers, and I came across a couple of things that caught my attention....

The Malaysian government was 'deeply troubled by the growth of "irresponsible" alternative media.' For examples, blogs :) The govt will be taking legal action against bloggers who flagrantly belittle Islam or the Yang de-Pertuan Agong. They want to see blogs used as a means of obtaining accurate information, a reference point for honest opinions. Crap, that's me out.

There are no laws to restrict the number of passengers in private vehicles here in Malaysia. Apparently, it's not easy to limit the number of passengers, although one new proposal is for those sitting in the back to have to wear seatbelts......... Go figure.

For a mere RM17 (about $7 or $8 Aussie dollars), you can buy a 'bona fide' medical chit (a doctor's certificate), complete with a stamp from a government hospital. The undated stamps carry all different doctors' names. The chits comes from an unknown syndicate that has been running for about 6 months, but you have to be in the know to get one.

Machines (eg, the washing machine) were causing women to become obese, especially once they passed 40 (the women, that is, not the machines)...

And on the topic of women, apparently more of them are becoming involved in dadah trafficking. Nope, dadah nothing like doodoo; it's actually a heck of a lot more serious. Had to look it up after reading that article.

In Rantau Panjang, the State Anti-Smuggling Unit foiled an attempt to smuggle 90 sacks of cockle spat into Thailand. The monetary value of these sacks was RM72,000 (about $24,000 Aussie dollars). What the heck's 'cockle spat?' I know what a cockle is, and it's pretty tasty, but a cockle spat sure doesn't sound appealing...

About this stage through the paper, I was feeling kinda ignorant, so I went and got me another beer. That always helps to understand things a little better, I've found. Hopefully, the Tiger beer would go well with the Long Island Ice Tea I'd had at dinner.

So thus freshly whetted, I continued...

Next article: Immigration in a spot over two 'princesses.' Seems two young ladies, claiming to be princesses from the ancient Sunda empire, were detained at the 'buffer zone' between Malaysia and Brunei. They were carrying passports issued by the Sunda Democratic Empire, but unfortunately for them, Sunda isn't recognised by Malaysia. Immigration has no idea of the young ladies' status, and were even confused over how to go about deporting them, as they were found in this buffer zone. The poor lasses; last heard, they were still being detained, 14 days later...

The last article I read was by journalist Rehman Rashid, who said he was given some transformative advice when he started out in the business 25 years ago, advice that could be summed up 'in a single earthly colloquialism: Lu siapa?'

Rashid goes on to say; "Get out of the office, out of the house, out of the comfort zone and out to where real people lived real lives in the real world. Get them talking and listen to them, taking notes."

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Well, it's been a wild time of late - brought a house and am off to Malaysia on Monday for fieldwork...

Woosh!

Did you see that? No? That was me, wizzing past - at least that's how it's felt of late.

Buying a house is an exciting experience. It's also stressful, mad, chaotic, and involved! Especially when the settlement is only 6 weeks! And even more especially when your - well, no, I'd best not start complaining here about who didn't do what they were paid to do... Let's just say, my phone bill was in the hundreds, my work output dropped dramatically, and scotch never tasted so good....

Our brand-spanking new house from the paddock...

But it all worked out in the end (only just!), and now we have a house. A you beaut, brand new, modern as heck house, 4 bedrooms and a double garage. Got just under 4 acres, too, of flat green land. The horses are loving it ('cept they're getting a bit, er, large...). My wife is loving it (she had the biggest smile upon her beautiful face). I'm loving it too.

I'm even loving the hour and a half+ ride to work and home again each day (no, seriously, I am, hear me out), cos I sit on the train with my headphones on, listening to Marilyn Manson, Dimmu Borgir, Rob Zombie, Rammstein, Slip Knot, Cradle of Filth, etc, and write.

And it's been bloody brilliant. I've done so much work on my novel this past week, it's such a great feeling. The effort is so focused; I can't go anywhere, can't really do much else- I feel like my writing has been solid, and I feel like I'm really getting somewhere.

And now, not 2 weeks after we moved, I have to head off to Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur and then Miri) for 2 weeks fieldwork. Collecting rock samples from core sheds this time, so no hiking through jungles for me (which is good, and bad, but mostly good). Instead, the company I'm working for are putting me up at a 5-star spa and resort....